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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 



BY 



William Pepper, M.D., LL.D. 



DELIVERED 



^■\ VR^nY^UU KUO \AkRSHN\.\. CO\.V.tG.t. L^UCkSTtR, ?\., OU AHt 
1787-1887. 



PHILADELPHIA : 

Dando Printing and Publishing Company, 

34 South Third Street. 

1887. 



502 



Tg K2 



AN ADDRESS 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 



DELIVERED AT FRANKLIN AND MARSHALL COLLEGE, LANCAS- 
TER, PA., ON THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF 
ITS FOUNDATION, I787-I887, 



WILLIAM PEPPER, M. D., LLD., 

Provost and Professor of Theory and Practice of Medicine, 
University of Pennsylvania . 



THIS decade will pass down to history as our 
Centennial Epoch. Beginning with the 
National movement, which culminated in 
the World's Fair at Philadelphia, when for the first 
time we gave to the astonished world the evidence 
of o; r mastery over the material difficulties with 
which we had contended for a century, we have 
passed in review the leading incidents of those 
marvelous years from 1776 to 1786, which witnessed 
the successful struggle of the infant Republic for 
existence. Many of the minor celebrations have 
possessed more than a local or than even a State 



interest, owing either to the importance of the 
original incident, the magnitude of the principle 
illustrated by it, or the distinction of the leading 
actors who played parts in it. 

We have been brought to realize, as could have 
been done in no other way, the richness and 
picturesqueness and dramatic interest of the history 
which America has already created. It seems fortu- 
nate indeed, on the threshold of a new Century of 
National life, when we are confronted with many 
grave problems, widely different from, but no less 
momentous than, those which have thus far taxed 
the energies of the Nation, that pause should be 
given to our eager steps, and that our closest 
attention should be drawn to the character, the 
methods, and the deeds of those great men, 
the founders of our Government, to whom we 
and the whole world owe so weighty a debt of 
gratitude. 

We are met here, in this famous old city, to cele- 
brate such an incident, of striking historic interest 
not only on account of its date, but of the princi- 
ples it illustrated, and of the men whose names are 
inseparably connected with it. 

I have been invited, most courteously, by the 
learned Faculty and the distinguished friends of 
Franklin and Marshall College, to speak briefly of 



him to whom we owe the foundation of this vener- 
able institution. I am well aware that this invitation 
was addressed, not so much to me personally, as to 
the office which I have the honor to hold in connec- 
tion with another, and yet more venerable institution 
of learninQT, which owes even more to the eenius 
and the wise enterprise of Franklin. And, although 
I was well aware how vain it were for me to attempt 
to add to the interest of this occasion by any tribute 
I might pay to that illustrious man, I could not deny 
myself the gratification of appearing here to attest 
my veneration for him, and my cordial brotherly 
sympathy with the able, earnest men who are prose- 
cuting zealously the good work started here a 
hundred years ago, 

I may not even attempt to sketch the salient 
features of the rare character, or to enumerate the 
leading achievements of the almost unique life of 
our great scientist, statesman and philosopher. We 
may be assured that could he be cognizant of what 
we here do and say, no celebration were less to his 
favor than a panegyric on himself. But how good 
it were if, while our minds and hearts are full of 
what he was, and of what he accomplished, we could 
for the moment acquire some closer touch with his 
spirit, and have some clearer view of the difficulties 
and duties which press around us from the stand- 

3 



point of that broad tolerant wisdom which was so 
peculiarly his own. There are not many of the 
great ones who have entered the Temple of Fame, 
whom we should feel wholly safe in recalling to this 
lower life ; some for their own sake, possibly more 
of them on our account. But no one would hesitate 
to recall a man whose unceasing work, until the last 
hour of a life prolonged far beyond the wonted 
term, was the service of humanity, and who could 
write at the beginning of the story of his life, in 
which all is recorded with unsparing candor that, 
"I should have no objection to a repetition of the 
same life from its beginning, only asking the advan- 
taofes authors have in a second edition to correct 
some faults of the first. But though this were de- 
nied, I should still accept the offer." How often, 
and how pleasantly he returns to this thought, as 
when, while in England, after repeating successfully 
the experiment of reviving, by exposure to the rays 
of the sun, three flies which had been drowned in a 
bottle of Madeira, he moralizes thus, "I wish it 
were possible, from this instance, to invent a method 
of embalming drowned persons in such a manner 
that they may be recalled to life at any period how- 
ever distant; for having a very ardent desire to see 
and observe the state of America, a hundred years 
hence, I should prefer to any ordinary death the 

4 



beinof immersed in a cask of Madeira wine widi a 
few friends, till diat time, to be then recalled to life 
by the solar warmth of my dear country." Indeed, 
as he had lived from early life to old age, as a man 
who thought that nothing human could be foreign 
to him; and had realized by his own exertions that 
ideal of liberal education described by Huxley, by 
so training himself in youth that his body was the 
ready servant of his will, and did with ease and 
pleasure all the work it was capable of; and had in 
all stages of his advancement retained his pride in 
the honest toil of his early manhood, being wholly 
free from petty arrogance ; and had above all things 
labored for the welfare of mankind, looking forward 
with sublime confidence to the growth of peace, 
prosperity and goodness among men, — he was one 
who might return at any time to find himself again 
among friends, and to be able intuitively to adjust 
himself to the new ways of the once familiar planet. 

He would rejoice, unspeakably, to find the second 
century of our Nation's life begun with the Union 
which he did more than any other man to institute, 
cemented eternally and indissolubly by the tears of 
brethren embracing after fratricidal strife. 

Eminently practical in statescraft, as in all else, 
he perceived, with the instinct of genius, that in 
organization and union lie all strength and endur- 



ance. " I have long been of opinion," he wrote to 
Lord Karnes in 1761, "that the foundations of the 
future grandeur and stabiHty of the British Empire 
He in America," and as Parton truly says, "his 
entire influence, and all the resources of his mind 
were employed, from the beginning of the contro- 
versy in 1765, to the first conflict in 1775, to the 
one object of healing the breach and preventing 
the separation." Even at that early day he saw 
clearly, and outlined distinctly, the grand conception 
of an Imperial Federation of Great Britain and the 
Colonies, toward which, after one hundred years of 
delay, steps are beginning to be taken ; and in 
1775, when almost despairing of making any im- 
pression on the crass ignorance and prejudice 
and class privilege then dominant in England, he 
brought forward his bold plan for the union of the 
Colonies, including Ireland and Canada, to last 
until Great Britain should cease to oppress, and 
make restitution for past injuries ; failing which it 
should endure forever. 

When convinced that perpetuation of the union 
with Great Britain was hopeless, though he shed 
tears over the destruction of that exquisite work, 
the British Empire, he threw himself with unabated 
vigor into the contest for freedom. Ihough old 
and separated from family, friends and country, he 

6 



adhered to his determination "with a firmness 
which neither the advances of England, nor the 
adversity of America, could shake." (Sir James 
Mackintosh.) 

Providence spared him to return to America to 
revive, for the purpose of uniting the thirteen 
states, the scheme of Union proposed by himself in 
1754, and to overcome by his wise counsels and 
adroit expedients, all opposition to the adoption 
and final ratification of the Constitution. 

When, in next September, the representatives of 
the several states shall meet in Philadelphia to 
celebrate the Centennial Anniversary of this deed 
of ratification, the final and most important scene 
of this period will be enacted ; and in that celebra- 
tion large space should be made for the recital of 
the part played by Franklin, who shares with 
Washington the immortal glory of winning and of 
keeping our freedom and our Union. 

But do we not need his spirit of wise conciliation, 
of moderation, and of firm regard for the equal 
rights of all men, as much to-day, as they were 
needed in those perilous times of old ? The days 
of our worst political dangers may be passed, but 
we have to face the struggle with social and 
economic dangers no less menacing. If Franklin 
performed invaluable services to his country by 



educating the people in a knowledge of their 
political rights, and by advocating these at all times 
and in all places, until finally the aid and friendship 
of the most powerful nations were secured, he was 
even more conspicuously useful as the teacher of 
religious toleration, of sound morality, and of that 
shrewd, practical common sense, which recognizes 
sell interest as the mainspring of human action, but 
which, at the same time, enlarges and enlightens 
the conception of self-interest. 

When Voltaire and Franklin embraced, amid the 
plaudits of the thronged French Academy, one saw 
the contact of the most powerful destructive and 
dissolving force, and the most constructive and 
conservative force then existing. Each had his 
great work to do for the amelioration of the human 
race, and there are not a few points of resemblance 
between these remarkable men, but their fields of 
action, and the masses to be moved, and the points 
of attack were so different, that it led them to widely 
different methods. 

FVanklin was admirably equipped as a popular 
teacher. Long study of the best models of English 
prose, aided by his fine literary sense, gave him a 
style unsurpassed for clearness and directness; 
while his rich vein of humor, his command of satire, 
of anecdote, and of terse, sententious phrase, enabled 

8 



him to convey large truths in such portable and 
attractive forms, that his teachings soon spread far 
and wide, and fixed themselves in the memory and 
speech of men. But here, as in all cases, that which 
gave most weight to his teachings were the character 
and the life of the teacher. 

He made the newspaper press a power for good, 
as it had never been before ; and he set the ex- 
ample, and adhered to it throughout his editorial 
career, of preserving the columns of his paper free 
from all libelling and personal abuse, and all pur- 
veying to the prurient taste of a section of the com- 
munity. 

He was ever ready to recognize a public need, 
whether of school or library or hospital, and to 
devote his time, his energy, his money, to supplying 
the deficiency. 

No man can carry through such public move- 
ments who is not himself liberal, and who does not 
give his full share in every way to support the enter- 
prise. While the author of " Poor Richard" taught 
all classes alike the value of money, the duty of 
economy, the pride of independence, and the nobility 
of labor, and often by language or simile which may 
be misconstrued so as to advocate parsimony, the 
same self-taught, self-made man was incessant in all 
good and liberal deeds. 



He recognized early the advantages of co-opera- 
tion, and his treatment of deserving MAorkmen is a 
suggestive point in the history of the relations of 
Capital and Labor. Our greatest problem of to-day 
has to deal with these relations. Our very pros- 
perity forces it into greater prominence. The lib- 
erty and political rights of the individual give to it 
unprecedented urgency and importance. It may 
not be setded by force, nor by legislation, nor even 
by the church; but I believe it will be settled peace- 
ably and lawfully, and to the mutual advantage of 
all concerned, by a wide extension of the principle 
of organized co-operation, based upon a humane 
yet shrewd calculation of the self-interest of both 
parties to the bargain ; and I am glad to believe 
that as Franklin would have delighted to aid in 
consummating this, his spirit, and the influence of 
his teachings yet survive among us to assist in its 
realization, and to remind us that toil, thrift and 
temperance, with true humanity, are the key-notes 
of the successful solution of this great problem. 

Lord Brougham wrote, "One of the most re- 
markable men, certainly of our times, as a politi- 
cian, or of any age as a philosopher, was Franklin, 
who also stands alone in combining together these 
two characters, the greatest that man can sustain, 
and in this, that having borne the first part in en- 



larg-Ing science by one of the greatest discoveries 
ever made, he bore the second part in founding one 
of the greatest empires in the world," A mere 
enumeration of the notable scientific publications of 
Franklin would be too large for my purpose. All 
that it behooves us to do is to strive to appreciate 
the quality of this work, and the fact that it was 
done without encouragement or assistance, with 
the simplest self-made apparatus, and in the midst 
of distracting and absorbing business or political 
affairs. A keen observer by nature, he had 
trained himself to such incessant activity of mind, 
and to the employment of so pure an inductive 
method, that scarce anything escaped him, and 
every phenomenon observed started a train of 
philosophic reasoning so clear, so direct, and so 
well confined to the limits of the probable and the 
demonstrable, that he was capable of securing 
astonishing scientific results with means apparently 
most inadequate. The only period of his life when 
he gave himself up in any sense to scientific investi- 
gation, the only period during which he was not dis- 
tinctively engaged in some other absorbing pursuit, 
were the five years, 1747 to 1752, when he began to 
enjoy the leisure earned by hard but profitable 
work. All know the outcome of this investio-ation, 
and that the discoveries made by Franklin in elec- 



tricity, from their entire originality, the breadth and 
boldness of the generalization upon which they 
were based, the accuracy and conclusive nature of 
the experiments by which the hypotheses were 
established, the important practical results indicated 
by him, and the still more important results which 
have followed the further prosecution of the same 
study, have conferred immortality upon him, and 
placed him in the front rank of the natural philoso- 
phers of all times. 

Our amazement cannot be restrained when we 
reflect that this work was accomplished before he 
was forty-seven years of age, and that never again 
did he, who was then incomparably the most emi- 
nent American, and whose rank among European 
celebrities speedily rose to the highest point, have 
an opportunity of applying himself continuously to 
scientific research, although from that time to his 
death, at the age of eighty- four, he continued to 
produce remarkable scientific papers containing 
original observations, or striking generalizations, 
showing that the philosophic faculty was in vigorous 
action. It is idle to speculate upon what results 
might have followed a continuance of Franklin's 
scientific investio^ations. It has been o-ranted to 

o o 

but few men to arrive at even a single discovery of 
such importance as that on which his scientific fame 



chiefly rests ; but in fertility of mind, originality of 
suggestion, and prolonged intellectual and bodily 
vigor Franklin appears to stand unrivaled. 

We may more reasonably dwell on the joy it 
would give him could he return to see the position 
attained by his favorite branch of science, and to 
note that it is o-rowina- to be more and more the 
useful and reliable servant of man, ministering to 
his daily wants, and rendering life more enjoyable 
and more healthy. But still more would he rejoice 
to see the laboratories erected in all parts of the 
land, equipped with every appliance for scientific 
investigation, and crowded with earnest, ingenious 
students, for some of whom Fame holds high honors. 
He would feel, and with just pride, that to him more 
than to any other man, is due the splendid develop- 
ment of the scientific spirit and of scientific edu- 
cation in America ; and that the institutions, the 
societies, and the libraries he founded, or whose 
foundation he stimulated, are carrying forward and 
diffusing with ever increasing force the precious 
lio^ht of scientific truth which he kindled here. 

Franklin hated war. He hated it as a Christian, 
a philanthropist and an economist. He hated un- 
just taxation scarcely less. To the familiar accusa- 
tions against these he added one, possibly original 
with himself, and at least very characteristic of him, 

13 



He charged them both with the crime of preventing 
the birth of children — the one by the downright 
murder of many men, the other by the interference 
with the normal ratio of marriages — whose possible 
services to the world are unknown and well nigh 
infinite. And this veneration for the possibilities of 
the young lay at the root of his ardent advocacy of 
education, equally with his belief in the conservative 
and elevating influence of all sound knowledge. 
"What is the use of this new invention?" some one 
asked Franklin. "What is the use of a new-born 
child?" was his reply. What, indeed, has not been 
the use of the loom, or the steam-engine ; what not 
the precious value of a Howard, a Newton, a 
Franklin? 

I have alluded to Franklin's work as a moralist, a 
statesman and a scientist ; it would be strange in- 
deed, if I were not to speak here of him as an 
educator and as a philanthropist. He was essen- 
tially a self-educated man ; and he has left us a 
charming account of the methods he pursued in 
educating himself. Some may imagine that much 
of his characteristic strength and usefulness came 
from these lessons of early hardship. To me there 
certainly seems no ground for any such conclusion, 
in this or other cases, and he certainly did not hold 
that view. To assert that a great man who has 

14 



educated himself is greater on that account involves 
improbable assumptions. The number of very great 
men is extremely small. They occur at irregular 
intervals of time and space. When one such 
occurs, who, in addition to the other qualities of real 
greatness, has the added rare quality of deter- 
mination to improve himself to the utmost, we have 
the condition produced of a lad with an elective 
course of studies, secured under the most unfavor- 
able surroundings. Franklin was pre-eminently 
such a lad. Throughout his life he was unwilling 
to be "a speckled axe," in allusion to the anec- 
dote in his autobiography of the man who, in buying 
an axe of a smith, his neiehbor, desired to have the 
whole surface as brioht as its edore. The smith 
consented to grind it bright for him, if he would 
turn the wheel. He turned, while the smith pressed 
the broad face of the axe hard and heavily on the 
stone, which made the turning of it very fatiguing. 
The man came every now and then from the wheel 
to see how the work went on, and at length would 
take his axe as it was without further grinding. 
"No," said the smith, "turn on, turn on; we shall 
have it bright by and by ; as yet it is only speckled." 
"Yes," says the man; "but I think I like a speckled 
axe best." But while here and there lads of rare 
qualities, but lacking educational facilities, surmount 

15 



all obstacles and achieve greatness, the world can 
never know how many fail to attain their legiti- 
mate development. It is true that under no system 
of education can we expect to produce many such 
men as Goethe, who graduated at Strasburg; or 
Voltaire, who studied at the celebrated Jesuit College 
of Louis le Grand ; or Newton, who was an M. A. of 
Trinity College, Cambridge ; or Franklin, who was 
strictly self educated. But still less can we expect 
to produce under any one fixed, unvarying educa- 
tional plan even as many as should appear. No 
system of education should be devised for the benefit 
of these rare and exceptional natures; but it is 
among the positive advantages of a well-arranged 
elective system of studies that, while it provides for 
the dull and lazy, it affords the freest facility for the 
development and expansion of the gifted and the 
industrious. It is not surprising, therefore, that 
Franklin, having found in his own case that excellent 
results were attained by the thorough mastery of 
English, followed by a study of other modern lan- 
guages, before taking up the classics, should have 
been led to the conclusion that such is the natural 
and best course. 

Probably all are familiar with the interesting 
history of the University of Pennsylvania. It had 
its origin in the Academy of Philadelphia, which 

i6 



was founded in 1 749 throug-h the exertions of 
Franklin, In the tract which he pubhshed at that 
time, entitled " Proposals relating to the education 
of youth in Pennsylvania," he remarks: "The good 
education of youth has been esteemed by wise men 
in all ages as the surest foundation of the happiness 
both of private families and of Commonwealths," 
and then proceeds to describe with much detail 
the course of study proposed. It is noteworthy 
that he gives a foremost place to athletics, pro- 
viding " that the scholars be frequently exercised 
in running, leaping, wrestling, and swimming, to 
keep tliem in health, and to strengthen and render 
active their bodies." In this he anticipated the 
systematic instruction in athletics which has been 
introduced into our academies and colleges only 
recently, and after much unreasoning and ignorant 
opposition. Especial stress is laid on the fulness 
and thoroughness with which English is to be 
taught to all students, while in regard to other 
languages the following is provided: "All intended 
for divinity shall be taught the Latin and Greek ; 
for physics, the Latin, Greek and French ; for law, 
the Latin and French ; merchants, the French, 
German and Spanish ; and though all should not 
be compelled to learn Latin, Greek, or the modern 
foreign languages, yet none that have an ardent 

17 



desire to learn them should be refused, their Eng- 
lish, Arithmetic, and other studies absolutely neces- 
sary, being- at the same time not neglected." It is 
needless to point out with what clearness the 
fundamental principle of elective studies is here 
recognized, and how thoroughly in accord his con- 
clusions as to the study of languages are with those 
which are now at last coming gradually to be 
adopted generally. What followed in the history 
of the Academy (later the University) may be 
mentioned briefly, because, if I mistake not, an 
analogous experience was repeated here in the 
early days of Franklin College. So little heed was 
given to the proposals of the original founders as 
to the pre-eminent position to be held by English 
studies, that the classicists gradually acquired con- 
trol of the entire system of education in the institu- 
tion, and in 1789, the year before Franklin's death, 
we find him publishing a spirited and forcible pro- 
test against a continuance of this perversion of the 
original trust. It is here that the familiar passage 
occurs, "at what time hats were first introduced we 
know not; but in the last century they were univer- 
sally worn throughout Europe. Gradually, how- 
ever, as the wearing wigs and hair nicely dressed 
prevailed, the putting on of hats was disused by 
genteel people, lest the curious arrangement of 

• 18 



curls and powdering should be disordered ; and um- 
brellas began to supply die place ; yet still our con- 
sidering the hat as a part of dress continues so far 
to prevail, that a man of fashion is not thought 
dressed without having one, or something like one, 
about him, which he carries under his arm. So 
that there are a multitude of the politer people in all 
*i:he courts and capital cities of Europe, who have 
never, or their fathers before them, worn a hat 
otherwise than as a cJiapeau bras, though the utility 
of such a mode of wearing it is by no means appar- 
ent, and it is attended not only with some expense, 
but with a degree of constant trouble. The still 
prevailing custom of having schools for teaching 
generally our children in these days, the Latin and 
Greek languages, I consider, therefore, in no other 
light than as a chapeau bras of modern literature." 
It is not impossible that the estrangement of many 
of the original patrons and trustees of the College, 
brought about by this departure from the proposed 
plan, may have aided, to some extent, in causing 
the House of Assembly to arbitrarily withdraw 
the charter and estates of the Collesfe, thus causing 
a disastrous interference with its work during sev- 
eral years. And now, after the lapse of a century, 
we see, as well in the University of Pennsylvania 
as in other prominent colleges, success beginning 

19 



to crown the efforts of those who would insist on a 
thorough and advanced study of Enghsh as one of 
the essentials for all English-speaking students, 
while arranging the other languages — Latin, Greek, 
Hebrew, German, French, Italian — in associated 
elective groups. 

But Franklin's deep interest in education was not 
confined to the ereat institution of which he had been 
the founder ; nor was his zeal abated by an absence 
in foreign countries at different times for nearly 
thirty years, nor even by the attainment of the full 
limit of four score years. For a long time he had 
taken ereat interest in the welfare of the Germans 
who formed the bulk of the population in some parts 
of Pennsylvania. He aided in the establishment of 
schools for them, and served as a trustee of a society 
for the benefit of the poor among them ; and in 
1787, although in his eighty-first year, he was active 
in the promotion of the long-cherished scheme of 
founding a college for the education of young Ger- 
mans. On March loth of that year, 1787, an act 
was passed by the Assembly incorporating and en- 
dowing the "German College and Charity School, 
in the Borough and County of Lancaster," in which 
act it is recited that the college is established for 
the instruction of youth in the German, English, 
Latin, Greek, and other learned languages, in 



Theology, and in the useful arts, sciences, and litera- 
ture." The same act of incorporation states that, 
from a profound respect for the talents, virtues and 
services to mankind In general, but more especially 
to this country, of His Excellency Benjamin Frank- 
lin, Esq., President of the Supreme Executive 
Council, the said college shall be and hereby is 
denominated " Franklin College." Franklin was 
the larorest contributor to its funds, orivlna- of his 
moderate fortune the sum of $i,ooo, which may be 
considered large for those days ; and still more, when 
in the spring of 1787 the corner-stone was to be 
laid in Lancaster, he underwent the pain and 
fatigue of a journey thither in order to perform that 
ceremony. The able historians of Lancaster have 
well described the causes which led the college to 
languish at first, until an act of the Legislature In 
1850, confirmed the union which had been agreed 
upon, after long negotiations, with Marshall Col- 
lege, founded in 1836, then situated in Mercersburg, 
and named after the great Chief Justice who Is fitly 
styled "The Expounder of the Constitution." 
From that time forward, a career of usefulness and 
prosperity has been pursued by this admirable insti- 
tution, which honored by Its association with two of 
the wisest and greatest men America has produced ; 
fortunate in the possession of a President and Faculty 



renowned as able administrators, sound scholars, 
and zealous and skilful teachers ; and enjoying 
every advantage of location and environment, 
seems surely destined to fill a more and more 
prominent place among our colleges. 

Yet will I be pardoned, I trust, for uttering a word 
of earnest appeal to those with whom must rest the 
fulfillment of this destiny. Were Franklin standing 
now with us, so that he might survey the changes 
wrought in a century in this college, in this city, and 
in this grand county of Lancaster, what think you 
must be his verdict? Though no record is pre- 
served to us of what he said a hundred years ago 
when the corner-stone of this college was laid, we 
can scarcely doubt that he dwelt on the vast value 
to any community of a strong and well-endowed 
college in their midst ; of the claims which such an 
institution has upon all classes on account of the 
benefits, moral, educational and material, which it 
ensures ; and of the consequent duty which all owe 
to serve, to support and to strengthen it in all ways 
possible. He would have said this with eminent 
propriety and with convincing force, because his 
whole life, nay, his very presence here, would attest 
the sincerity of his words. 

He was a self-made man, who had known in his 
youth the extremes of poverty ; he became a sue- 



cessful business man with a remarkable capacity for 
making and saving money ; he knew well the value 
and importance of money, and the dignity conferred 
by wealth; he had every motive to encourage him 
in a course of keen absorbing gainful business. 
Yet from his early manhood we see him steadily 
maintainino- a hiorh resolve that his life should not 
be consumed in the mere pursuit of wealth ; we see 
him begin early and continue a course of liberal 
contributions to all worthy enterprises, of religion, 
charity and education ; we see him always willing 
to devote a large share of his time and energy and 
business ability to promote the successful prose- 
cution of such undertakings ; we see him retiring 
from active business as soon as a handsome compe- 
tency is secured, in order to devote himself to study 
and original investigation, and yet ready, again and 
again, and even when broken with years and suffer- 
ing, to abandon his well-earned leisure in response 
to the call of duty to serve the institutions of 
his city, or the City itself, or the State, or the 
Nation. 

He would see the City of Lancaster grown from 
3,300 in 1787 to over 30,000 inhabitants, with taxable 
property of ^13,000,000 value, and a debt of only 
;^46o,ooo ; and spreading around this beautiful and 
wealthy city, he would see one of the richest do- 

23 



mains that earth can boast — a county which is an 
empire in itself, with a total area of 620,000 acres, of 
which 556,314 are in farm lands (490,922 of im- 
proved acres being divided among 9,070 farmers), 
valued at ^70,000,000 ; the farm implements and 
machinery at over |,2, 000,000 ; the value of the 
stock almost ^5,000,000 ; the cost of a single year's 
building and repairing fences, ^329,790; and the 
estimated value of one year's product 5^9,320,202. 
The taxable value of the property is $86,824,823 at 
a value of two-thirds the real worth, and upon this 
a levy of two and a half mills collects adequate 
revenue for all its current expenses. 

He would find this splendid territory occupied by 
a population of over 150,000 (of whom 132,382 are 
natives and only 7,065 foreign born), sprung from 
the most sturdy stocks which enter into the forma- 
tion of our composite race. He would hear many 
family names, familiar as household words wherever 
eminence and excellence in social, professional, 
literary, or religious life are known and appreciated. 
He would realize that here as well as elsewhere in 
this country, the first century of national existence 
has closed on a scene of unexampled prosperity, 
and that in entering on its second century, it is upon 
a true Augustan era that the rising sun of our 
national greatness projects his dazzling rays. 

24 



We are happily done with all doubt as to the 
permanence of our Union or of our form of Govern- 
ment ; we have wiped out the foulest blot on our 
civilization ; we have developed our material re- 
sources until the vast continent is subjugated ; but it 
remains to be seen if we can cope with the more 
insidious dangers of luxury and of overflowing 
wealth; if we can respond to the call on us for the 
development of higher and purer types of civic life 
and organization adequate to the growing needs of 
our teeming millions ; whether we can retain, amid 
the allurements of materialism, our hold on the deep- 
lying verities of life. But when that wise man 
should see how, in a degree unprecedented in any 
other age or land, the opening years of this new 
century are marked by the splendid generosity of 
individuals who bestow princely benefactions to en- 
dow the sacred causes of religion, charity and edu- 
cation ; when he should see religion rendered 
thereby more tolerant as well as more powerful ; 
charity more discriminating and truly helpful ; edu- 
cation more broad and liberal and practical ; he 
would feel his robust faith in mankind streng-th- 
ened and his unwavering belief in the destiny of 
America still more firmly rooted. 

Men and women of Lancaster, you have here 
institutions which stand as faithful witnesses of 

25 



noble lives consecrated to the public weal, and as 
silent but convincing appeals to us to bear in mind 
what they did in the day of small things, that we 
may be worthy stewards of the larger bounty en- 
trusted to us for a time. 



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